Describe a piece of information you decided to check before you believed it.
A modern abstract card built around a small act of scepticism. It is easier than it looks, because everyone has done this — the difficulty is remembering a specific instance rather than talking about misinformation in general.
The task card
Describe a piece of information you decided to check before you believed it.
You should say:
- what the information was
- where you first came across it
- how you checked it
and explain what you concluded and why.
How long you have
- 1 minute
Preparation
The examiner hands you the card, paper and a pencil. Make notes — a few words per cue point, never sentences.
- 1–2 minutes
Your long turn
Speak until the examiner stops you at two minutes. Finishing early is the most common self-inflicted problem in Part 2.
- 1–2 questions
Rounding off
The examiner may ask one or two short follow-up questions, then moves straight into the Part 3 discussion on the same theme.
Part 2 takes three to four minutes in total. The whole Speaking test runs 11 to 14 minutes across three parts, and Part 3 that follows lasts four to five minutes.
How to approach this card
The instinct is to talk about misinformation as a phenomenon. Resist it. The card asks for one piece of information you personally checked: a health claim in a family group chat, a job advert that looked too good, a statistic in a headline, a discount that seemed impossible. Small and domestic is completely acceptable and much easier to sustain.
The third bullet — how you checked it — is the section that carries the answer, and it wants process language: what you searched, who you asked, what you compared it against, what finally settled it. Sequencers are your friend here: the first thing I did, at that point, what actually convinced me was.
For the conclusion, avoid a flat verdict. The interesting version explains what tipped it: not just 'it was false', but that the original figure was from 2009, or that every article repeating it cited the same single source. Explaining your reasoning is precisely what the fourth bullet and the whole of Part 3 reward.
Ideas you can actually use
Three angles on this card. Pick the one closest to something real in your own life — invented material is what makes candidates hesitate at ninety seconds.
Small, domestic claims are best
- A health claim forwarded in a family group chat
- A job advert, a rental listing, or a discount that seemed impossible
- A statistic in a headline that did not match anything you had seen
Describe the checking as a process
- Look for the original source the screenshot claims to come from
- Find the underlying study or document and check its size and date
- Notice whether every version cites the same single source — the classic tell
Conclude with nuance
- Often the answer is not false but decontextualised, exaggerated, or out of date
- Say what finally settled it, not just what the verdict was
- What you did about it, and whether correcting people works
What your one minute of notes should look like
Not sentences — a few words per cue point. This is the level of detail sixty seconds actually buys you, and it is enough to speak from for two minutes.
- WHAT — spice in hot water lowers BP enough to cut medication
- WHERE — family group chat, screenshot of a 'news article'
- CHECKED — couldn't find the article; found the real study: 40 people, tiny effect
- CONCLUDED — real result quoted out of context; sent the study, not a debunk
Model answer
Speak your own answer first. Examiners are trained to spot memorised speeches and mark them down — use this to study structure, pacing and naturalness, never to recite.
Show the model answer
The one I remember clearly was a claim that went round my family's group chat last winter — that a particular kitchen spice, taken every morning in hot water, could bring your blood pressure down enough that you could reduce your medication. It came with a screenshot of what looked like a news article. My uncle sent it, and he takes blood pressure medication, so this wasn't an abstract question for anybody. That's really why I checked it. If it had been a claim about, I don't know, sleep or coffee, I'd probably have scrolled past. So, how did I check it. The first thing I did was look for the article the screenshot came from, and I couldn't find it anywhere on the site it claimed to be from, which was already a bad sign. Then I searched the actual claim, and I did find a real study — but it was a small trial, about forty people, and the effect was real but tiny, nothing like enough to change a prescription. What finally settled it was noticing that every version of the claim doing the rounds cited that same one study, and every one of them had rounded the finding up into something the researchers had explicitly said it didn't show. So my conclusion was that it wasn't exactly a lie — it was a real result quoted completely out of context, which is much harder to argue with in a family group chat than an outright invention. I sent my uncle the original study rather than a debunking article, because I think people accept the source far more readily than they accept being corrected.
Why this works: The choice is small, domestic, and verifiable — which is why the detail never runs out. The third bullet is given the most time and is built from clear sequencing ('the first thing I did', 'then', 'what finally settled it'), and the conclusion is nuanced rather than binary: not false but decontextualised. The closing observation about how people accept sources is the kind of independent thought that lifts an answer, and it opens naturally into the Part 3 discussion that follows.
Useful vocabulary for this topic
- it did not add up
Idiom for something that seemed internally inconsistent.
- to take it with a pinch of salt
To treat a claim sceptically; very natural in this context.
- a reputable source
The standard collocation for a trustworthy publisher.
- to cross-check
Precise verb for comparing one source against another.
- it turned out to be
Introduces the result of your checking cleanly.
- quoted out of context
For accurate information used misleadingly.
- the claim doing the rounds
Idiomatic phrase for something circulating widely.
The same phrases in a full sentence
A phrase list is only useful if you know how the words sit around it. Say each of these aloud once before you attempt the card.
- it did not add up
- “Something about it did not add up, so I went looking for the original.”
- to take it with a pinch of salt
- “I take anything that arrives as a screenshot with a fairly large pinch of salt.”
- to cross-check it
- “I cross-checked it against two other sources and neither of them said the same thing.”
- quoted out of context
- “It was not invented — it was a real finding quoted completely out of context.”
Part 3 discussion
After your long turn the examiner moves into a four to five minute discussion on the same theme, working from two related discussion topics with about three questions each. The first stays close to your own experience; the second widens out. Answer with reasons and examples, not one-line replies.
Getting the news
Example questions
- 1Where do most people in your country get their news?
- 2How easy is it to tell a reliable news source from an unreliable one?
- 3Do you think people trust newspapers less than they used to?
False information
Example questions
- 1Can you suggest why false stories spread faster than corrections?
- 2Whose responsibility is it to check what is published online?
- 3Should schools teach students how to check information for themselves?
More on how this family of cards is discussed: Abstract and idea-led prompts.